The present invention relates to the field of medical equipment. It finds particular application in conjunction with a tray which holds both sterilized set of medical products and an unsterilized vessel of contrast media and will be described with particular reference thereto. It is to be appreciated, however, that the invention will also find application in conjunction with trays for carrying a plurality of products, a fraction of which have been treated and a fraction of which have not, such as trays for carrying medical products which have been sterilized and medical products which have not been sterilized.
Commonly, a tray holds the set of sterilized medical products, such as syringes, needles, and the like, which are used for a selected procedure. The medical products are typically sterilized by exposure to ethylene oxide gas. Contrast media that is used in various medical procedures is typically packaged in a vial that has a fixed rubber stopper through which a sterile needle is inserted to withdraw sterile contrast media. However, due to the rubber interface, the contrast media vial cannot be sterilized with ethylene oxide gas.
For medical procedures which require a contrast media, various approaches have been taken. In the first approach, a tray of sterile medical products was provided without the vial of the contrast media. The contrast media vial was provided separately. Omitting the contrast media from the tray entirely defeated the primary purpose of using disposable, prepackaged trays. That is, all products necessary for completing the single procedure were not available in a common tray base.
One technique for providing both sterile syringes and other medical products and non-sterile contrast media vials in a common tray was to provide individually wrapped, sterilized medical products. The individually wrapped medical products were then stored in a non-sterile tray with the non-sterile contrast media vial. A primary drawback to this approach was that unwrapping each of the medical products was time consuming and a nuisance to the medical personnel.
An analogous approach was to seal the contrast media in an ethylene oxide impermeable, thick metallic packaging. Only the contrast media had individual wrappings that required removal. This enabled the other medical products to be sterilized. In addition to unwrapping the individual packaging for the contrast media, it was difficult to recognize which products within the unibody tray were sterile and which were not. Moreover, while this approach worked for ethylene oxide gas sterilization, it was not effective for sterilization by radiation.
The present invention contemplates a new and improved tray design which overcomes the above-referenced problems and others.